| identity
Readings:
These three sociology and social psychology papers discuss various aspects of an individual's interaction with others and social dynamics. Although the authors propose some quite differing perspectives on how people present and understand social identity, I believe there is also some common ground amongst them. Some accepted assumptions carried from one discussion to the next. George Simmel's essay How is society possible? is an early exploration of societal interaction which draws extensively on analogies to and differences from the study of nature and the work of theorists such as Kant. He discusses how someone makes sense of the identities and roles of others around the, based on limited and immediate impressions, through category formation and applying labels. Even when not fully aware, “we privately persist in labeling a man according to an unverbalised type”. He also considers at length the elements and assumptions which make a society possible, what drives societal interaction and the formation of society as a whole. Society, Simmel argues, is dependent only on the individuals within it and is maintained by its members' beliefs, the roles they play and comparisons made between those who are considered cohabitants and those who are viewed as outsiders – strangers and enemies. The parallels between Simmel's description of society in terms of internal roles and differences to those outside, and his description of an individual's perception of identity is interesting. He describes an individual as defining themselves both in terms of their part in the unity of society and their uniqueness, which is emphasized by their difference from the category society has provided for them. It is this juxtaposition of someone's “pure, individual being” and the 'box' into which another places them, that leads to the “fragmentary structure” of an individual. These fragments of self, it is argued, provide glimpses of someone's inner personality and, combined with someone's label, are “transformed by another's view into the completeness of an individuality”. This will only ever partially fit with the 'core individuality' which is stated as: “It
seems ... that every individual has in himself a core of
individuality which cannot be re-created by anybody else whose core
differs qualitatively from his own”
This
leads Simmel to state that “we cannot know completely the
individuality of another”. He argues that unlike the social labeling, our 'true' individuality
cannot
be named, not even by ourselves. The need to establish a mental model
of those encountered, which must, as stated, differ from the truth,
leads to “varying degrees” of difference between
prototype and person. Simmel's description of categorization depends heavily on social role – bureaucrat, officer, businessman. The question is then asked, does this theory extend to less clearly defined social categories? He indicates some divergence from this framework in describing the rift that can develop between “absolute objectivity” and “inner life” in modern financial interaction. Something which holds today. I think for his general discussion of societal interaction, a transition can be made towards the current climate of an individual belonging to many more, often smaller, less well defined, social groups by placing considerably more emphasis on what Simmel calls “nuance”. A measure of the mixing between an individual's “social picture” and their “non-social imponderables”. A society cannot just be considered in terms of proximity in location, time and beliefs. It is formed and shaped by 'social beings' who, cyclically, are products of the society. I think a key point raised is that an individual is concerned with separate interactions with others, and not with the formation of society as a whole, and yet this is what their actions support. I feel Simmel's language often uses very visual metaphors in describing the perception of another. Examples include 'fragment', mental 'pictures', 'distortions' and 'veiled' images. This is a point of interest in terms of online representation. One question I would pose is whether the argument that each person has a destined role in society: “Equality
in people is impossible because of their different natures, life
contents, and destinies”
is not motivated in some part by attempting to justify the relatively privileged position of the author in society? Holland and Skinner's paper on Prestige and Intimacy considers the social phenomenon of cultural models that young American women apply to the men they encounter. The authors describe how categories established as a common language amongst the female group are necessary for discussion and motivated by societal maneuvers in term of prestige, showing previous experience and judging new encounters in the male group in terms of intimacy. Common type labels were established, examples include 'jock', 'nerd', 'sweetheart', 'sissy', etc.. The authors present the view that: “what is
important to people about these
types is not what one
must ascertain about persons to accurately classify them but rather
what one must know in order to know how to behave toward them”
Cultural models are defined as “learned mental representations of some aspect of the world” and it is argued that these are developed as tools to classify both old and new encounters, in terms of recall and judgment, respectively. Initial attempts to analyze these models using cognitive-structure analysis demonstrated no clear cut “underlying dimensions of meaning”, instead the terms seem to be defined by the social group in respect to the previous actions or males. This event based categorization may effect the development of cultural models in online communities. I think there must be a different set of acted out roles that become important. I also think that the continuous nature of chat rooms and newsgroups blur the period of an interaction and therefore a particular event. A further difference I would highlight is the permanence of newsgroups – such as google groups – and other computer stored text, which leads to a text that can be revisited and exactly quoted, rather than an interaction that is recalled and reconstructed at a later date. One suggestion I would propose is that it this may lead, in part, to fewer online derived classifications, with people relying on less suitable offline categories instead (although an observation of this may simply be due to their established place in language). A few points I would like to draw from the text. As with Simmel's description, Holland and Skinner's societal interactions also seem to rely a the a priori concept of underlying, true self. In their case in the form of “ordinary males” from which the categorized others differ. This in itself could be see as a larger category – ordinary – and would be interesting to explore further. The view presented in Prestige and Intimacy, that: “the
meaning of 'bachelor', for example, is integrally related to a
conceptualization of a social world in which such things as
bachelors exist”
seems to echo the importance that Simmel places on the societal roles and the society into which its members are “inextricably woven”. Holland and Skinner conclude that their informants deal in these cultural models on the assumptions that their “taken-for-granted world is a world of prestige and intimacy gained and lost”. The women in the study assume that previously encountered situations have predictable consequences. Prestige is gained when a female's “attractiveness is validated”. The authors identify this as the social group's driving force. I think their world is seen as 'taken-for-granted' because it is being continually supported and reaffirmed by an individual's need to use the terms that are acceptable amongst their peers. The categorization also allows the user to simply compare new experiences to previous stereotypes. Holland and Skinner describe this as “cognitive economy”, and identify the 'cost' of the economy as the overlooking of Simmel's 'fragments' of individuality. What may play a part in online communities is that: “the shared cultural model vastly facilitates communication; experiences can be rapidly communicated to other people if described according to conventions of the cultural model” This relates not just to gender classification, but also in more general shared categorizations. Goffman's text is concerned with presentation of self, and how people understand social identity. He opens with a description of categorization very similar to that of Holland and Skinner, namely the application of previous experience with a certain type of individual. The author goes on to argue that in analyzing an individuals actions and aware of their own and others attempts to perform a desired image, a person will divide the individuals interaction into two elements. Those that are easy to control and those which are considered uncontrollable. A “check upon the validity of what is conveyed” can be obtained by comparing these two. This is interesting in terms of online interations as the “ungovernable aspects” of expressive behavior are almost on existent. One might infer a state of tiredness or excitement from spelling, typing or grammatical errors, but little else. At this point we return to a theme that seems common to all these papers, the assumption of an underlying true self. Goffman describes how in an attempt to discover this true individuality, someone would “observe the unobserved observer”. The paper then describes how social interaction is established and supported by players a working consensus in a particular interaction, based an first impressions. This “surface of agreement” is then maintained through “defensive” and “protective” practices, described as tact. Conformation to prescribed roles is encouraged through social games and cautionary tales. The importance of first assumptions in this description would again seem to be a factor effecting online interactions particularly. As online interactions are often transient or carried out over extended periods of time, I would argue that it generally becomes more challenging to present a “good first impression” as your audience may be constantly shifting or revisiting only parts of a previous interaction. |